


every clawing heart

by bazanite



Series: a city for kings [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, BPD Kent Parson, Gen, Gratuitous Swearing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 08:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazanite/pseuds/bazanite
Summary: Kent doesn't talk about it, which is about 90% of Jeff's problem.





	every clawing heart

**Author's Note:**

> as with all hockey fics, let's just assume that lockout never happened and hockey players still totally have roommates because all the best drama happens with roommates and if that wasn't true 90% of this fic wouldn't have been written. hooray.

Providence is punch-cold when Jeff stumbles out of the bar. The breath in his lungs dries and freezes instantly, and the way he coughs feels like he's going to hack up a lung, or at least shatter one in his chest.

Kent's sitting on the curb on the corner of the block, and Jeff has to navigate a week-old dark grey ice pile to reach him.

"Jesus, Parser," Jeff says. "Have you been out here this whole time?"

Kent says something, too quiet, muffled into his own knees.

"What?" Jeff says, and Kent turns his head a little, just enough for the sound to escape.

"Why doesn't he want me?" Parse's knuckles are red where he drags them against the rough concrete, reaching drunkenly, exhaustedly for his phone where it's tumbled just out of his reach. "I've tried--I tried everything, I tried to give him everything I knew how to give him, I didn't, didn't want anything really, I just wanted  _ him _ \--" It's really surreal, Jeff thinks. Kent's clearly drunk, stuck in the heartbroken kind of wasted, but everything's coming out of his mouth clear and sharp. When he lifts his face, tears are pouring fast and hot down his cheeks. His collar is soaked. His hands are shaking. "I'd, christ, I'd give up everything if he just asked, I'd give up my whole life, my career, h--"

"Stop," Jeff snaps. He has to take a shaking breath; in no fucking universe does he want to hear the next thing out of Parson's mouth. The block is quiet around them save for the distant thumping of music from the club. The sky smells like ice. "You don't mean that."

Kent closes his mouth and just looks at him. In his entire life, Jeff doesn't think he's ever seen that look in someone's eyes, like he's already given up. Like he's just waiting for the nearest cab to jump the curb and take him out.

It kind of scares the shit out of him.

"You always been a weepy drunk, Parser?" Jeff jokes, trying to play it off.

Kent looks away into the dark of the street. He sighs and pushes himself shakily to his feet but tips dangerously. Jeff hurries over to slide an arm under his shoulders, keep him right, but Kent slaps his arm away.

"I'm--fuck off--I'm fine." He wobbles a little again, but shakes himself, finds his feet. "Whatever. S'frosty, Swoops. Don't stay out too late." Kent throws up an identical pair of drunk finger guns and clearly forces out a smile that doesn't touch his eyes. "Know what Coach always says. Nothing worse than a hangover on a plane."

He turns to shuffle back towards the bar and the cab line, and Jeff sighs. "Kent. I came out here to see if you wanted to bounce. Let's just go back to the hotel. Let's get some food."

Kent's shoulders tighten visibly under his coat before relaxing. Jeff can't quite see, but the shuffling sounds like Kent's maybe using the sleeve of his coat to wipe a hand over his face. He does hear the explosive breath that creeps out of Kent's lungs, and wonders if it hurts him as much as it hurts Jeff. Maybe not. Maybe Kent's got more ice in him than Jeff does.

"Thai?" Kent says.

Jeff jogs slightly to catch up, until they can stand shoulder-to-shoulder while the bouncer flags down a cab. "I doubt anything around here's open late enough to order, but we can try. There's no way we'll find any red curry as good as Good Siam."

Kent hums in wordless agreement, and Jeff watches him out of the corner of his eye. He can't figure out know how to... deal. He has no idea how to handle this. Is it okay to ask your bro if he feels like jumping off a bridge? What's the protocol there? He risks throwing an arm over Kent's shoulders and he might be imagining it, but maybe Kent leans into him, just a little.

"I hate this fucking town," Kent says.

Jeff looks down at him and silently agrees.

. . .

"I don't want to be like this," Kent whispers into the quiet of their hotel room, after they've stuffed themselves on the shittiest offerings of Providence's Chinese/Thai/Mexican late-night diner and watched the last half of Return of the Jedi on cable. "I don't know how I got to be so fucking intolerable."

Jeff stares at the ceiling. "Try to sleep," he finally says, quiet. "It'll hurt less in the morning."

Silence stretches for a minute, and then Kent grunts and rolls over.

Jeff's pretty sure neither of them falls asleep for a long time.

. . .

And here's the thing. Jeff's not an  _ idiot _ . Nobody had to roll up to his house with a stretch Hummer and a thousand-LED sign in flashing spectacle that said  _ KENT PARSON AND JACK ZIMMERMAN TOTALLY USED TO BANG AND ALSO KENT IS STILL COMPLETELY GONE ON THE GUY. _ Jeff has  _ eyes _ . He has ears. He's watched Kent regularly slip out of bars or hotel rooms or post-win media scrums to dial a number that never picks up. He's seen the light seep out of him--almost imperceptibly--when it happens. Some days it's better than others. Some days he comes back to the table, or the bar, or the couch, and jumps back into whatever stupid conversation they're having. But more often than not, Jeff'll watch him through a window, watch the way he stares at his phone after he disconnects the call, until the screen goes black, until he's picked the cuticle of his thumbnail until it bleeds.

He's seen the way Kent'll either refuse to watch Zimmerman's media if it comes on TV, or the way he'll stop what he's doing and sit on the edge of whatever gross identical duvet this particular hotel has purchased and stare at the way Zimmerman laughs, kind of tilted and self-deprecating, totally transfixed.

Anyway. The point is: Jeff likes to think he's a pretty perceptive guy. He has about a hundred sisters and isn't exactly virginal himself. He knows what heartbreak looks like.

. . .

They sit together on the plane and Jeff shares his Cinnabon when Kent hands him a cup of coffee.

"You get the jizzy hot syrup?" Kent says as Jeff's opening the box, so of course they have to pull the bit up on Kent's iPad after takeoff. It's raining when they break through the cloud cover, and Kent quietly flips off Providence as it disappears behind them.

It's 9 am, but the steward comes by with a glass of whiskey for Parse anyway.

"Did you know Louis CK's Mexican?" Kent asks after they've watched the whole special, head tipped against Jeff's shoulder.

"Huh," Jeff says.

"Mm. I met him at one of his shows once like ten years ago. Before he got really famous."

When Jeff looks down to make sure he's asleep this time for good, Kent's leaning against his arm, mouth half open, dark circles vibrant under his eyes. Jeff's breath catches in his throat a little, but he settles in with his Kindle and shakes it off.

. . .

They go out for drinks after a hard win against the Preds in March. Double overtime always feels like a bag skate, and Jeff's pretty sure Kent's already introduced his guts to a trashcan after tumbling off the ice, but they go get fucked up anyway.

It's not their best idea but... it's good. Kent sticks to tequila on the rocks all night. Jeff loves tequila-drunk Kent. Tequila Kent is happy. Tequila Kent likes to dance and talk about space and do sappy shit like write precious affirmations on the bathroom walls with the pen he stole from the bar. They'll eventually get scrawled over by fragile masculinity, but Kent does it anyway.

"Hey. Hey. Swoops. What'chu thinkin' 'bout. Huh? Huh, Swoops? Swoop-diddly-woops? "

Jeff flicks his thumbs through Kent's laces, pulls the tongue, yanks the shoe off. He smiles. "Guess I'm thinking about how nice it is to see you in such a good mood."

"Aw, man," Kent flops backwards in bed, even though Jeff's only halfway done with his other shoe. His arms are splayed out like a starfish. "You can't just  _ say _ that. Now I'm bummed out. I'm not a good friend." He jacks his foot up and down so Jeff has to grab his ankle.

"You're a great friend, asshole. When you're cooperating. Stop that. Behave."

Kent giggles--honest to God giggles--and lets Jeff finish off the shoe situation. Jeff throws his sneakers haphazardly at the foot of the bed and uses all of his upper body strength to roll Kent into his blankets like a burrito. Kent's laughing the entire time, delighted.

"It'll never work," Kent says, flushed and grinning. "No butterfly soup here."

Jeff kneels on the bed and raises an eyebrow down at Kent as he wiggles and slips his arms out of his weird grown-ass man swaddle. "Soup?"

"Yeah. When caterpillars turn into butterflies the caterpillar just kind of... dissolves." Kent punches the pillow and slams his head down into it. It looks violent, but Kent sighs, content. "Genetic soup."

"What the fuck," Jeff says. "That's some eldritch shit."

Kent laughs, full bodied and surprised. "Can't believe your dumb ass knows what eldritch means. You never think about how caterpillars grow up, Jeffrey?"

Jeff sits back on his heels and shrugs.

"What'd you want to be when you grew up?" Kent asks, suddenly serious. "Don't say hockey player. Restricted answer."

Jeff hasn't only ever wanted to play hockey. He had... other interests, like 20 years ago. He liked animals a lot, growing up. Thought about going to vet school if maybe the freakish HGH-basted lineman from Millbrook accidentally took out his knee and ended his career at 16. Biology was his best subject anyway. He rolls off Kent's bed and looks down at the way Kent's hair sprawls over his pillow, honey-gold.

"Elephant doctor," Jeff says. "I love elephants. They're big and smart and--" Kind. "Cool as hell."

Kent laughs, surprised. "That's very you, you fuckin' weirdo."

Jeff rolls his eyes, fond despite himself. "What about you?"

"Hockey player," Kent says, ever combative. He sounds half-asleep, his answer soft and half-coherent.

"Hey," Jeff protests. "You said we couldn't say hockey."

"Haha, tricked you. It was my answer. No samesies."

Jeff huffs out a laugh. "Go to sleep, Parser."

He putters about the room in the dark, gets his dopp kit from his bag, hangs his shirt up in the closet, and brushes his teeth while he's standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

"Wanted to be an astronaut," Kent mumbles into his pillow.

Not for the first time, Jeff wonders what kind of a life somebody must have to want to leave the surface of the earth at 18,000 miles per hour.

. . .

Kent comes back from the bar at 3 am after they murder the Aeros on their own ice. Jeff isn't exactly a light sleeper, but the sound the hotel door makes when a drunk person tries to close it isn't exactly baby's first soothing noise machine.

"Shit," Kent slurs, clearly trying to be quiet and failing spectacularly.

Jeff isn't exactly awake per se, hasn't pushed himself to full blown consciousness, but when the bathroom light cuts off and Kent kicks off his shoes and trips onto Jeff's shoulder and into his bed, sleep flees him.

"Christ, Parser," Jeff groans. "This isn't your fucking bed."

"Shhheeeee," Kent shushes nonsensically, and reaches up to pat at Jeff's face. "S'sleepintime."

"Parser," Jeff insists, pissed. "Kent, get the fuck up. Honestly, just three feet to your left, man. Let me sleep."

But Kent's already gently snoring against Jeff's arm and Jeff chooses his battles. At least he's here. At least he's safe and not face down in an alley without a wallet or a kidney. At least Jeff can keep an eye on him here.

If he maybe curls his arm up around Kent's back and shoves him around a little to find the most comfortable spot, it's purely because Jeff doesn't want to wake up with pins and needles shooting through his shoulder.

. . .

Jeff wakes up in a start when Kent jolts away from him in the morning.

"Shit," Kent says, pushing the hair out of his eyes. Jeff looks up at him, bleary. The blackout curtains are still firmly in place, and the harsh golden outline of morning light peeks through at the edges, casting Kent in an eerie glow. Kent groans. "Shit, man, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-- When did I get in your bed?" He laughs a little, but it's tinged sour.

"You don't remember," Jeff says. His throat hurts.

Kent looks around the room like he's trying to piece it together. He looks unsettled.

"It's okay," Jeff says. "At least you don't starfish. If I cared I would have pushed your ass onto the floor. What time is it?"

Kent looks at the clock right as Jeff's alarm goes off. He's still got a warm hand on Jeff's arm. They both pretend like Kent isn't shaking.

. . .

They get knocked out in the fifth against the Ducks on home ice.

"The  _ Ducks! _ " Kent wails intermittently, throwing his hands in the air. "You  _ eat _ ducks!"

His protestations get louder and stupider throughout the night, but it has the intended effect: the rookies laugh, the rest of the team diverts their irritation to Kent (who manages it spectacularly, who is kind of a magician at drawing people's attention and turning their anger into companionship), the other patrons in the bar surround them and demand selfies and buy the team consolation beer.

In the corner of the bar, Jeff sits in a booth and watches the carefully crafted play Kent produces.

Jeff loves him in a way he can't explain. He's thought a lot about how insufficient English is at describing love. It kind of crept up on him over the years, his attraction to this reckless blond idiot who showed up on his doorstep. At first it was like every crush, every terrible lust that Jeff's experienced. He spent nights dreaming about pressing Kent down into his mattress and making him tremble, but he understands the world doesn't owe him a blowjob. He's not an asshole.

Now, though, now Jeff wants him from far away, from a mellow and unlikely place. A quiet corner where Jeff knows his place. Where he can watch.

This time, in this ostentatious bar, cursing the Anaheim Ducks, it happens right in front of his eyes. He's never seen it before, never seen Kent change so rapidly. One second he's got an arm slung around Rummy's neck, sloshing beer onto the guy's shirt, singing along to Don't Stop Believing at the top of his lungs like he's one of a dozen sorority girls in a Lifetime movie, and the next second he just... deflates. He slides off of Rummy's shoulders and pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at it, just once, mouth tilted into an ugly frown while the singing carries on around him.

Jeff drains his beer and gets up.

"Fuck the Ducks," Kent says when Jeff leans against him. He's clearly exceedingly tickled by his own joke. "Get it? Fuck a duck?"

"God," Jeff groans. He puts his hand on the back of Kent's head and shakes. "What are you, fourteen? You are so dumb."

Kent looks up at him and his grin is so wide it might split his face in two. There are tears in his eyes.

"Hey," Jeff says, alarmed. "What--"

"I feel like shit," Kent interrupts, still grinning, but it looks a little dark and stretched too tight. "Can we go home?"

Jeff's fingers flex against Kent's hair. "Yeah, Parser. Let's get you home."

. . .

When they get to Kent's condo, Kent gets a beer and they go sit by the edge of the pool, their feet dangling in the water. Kent's on the top floor, and the lights of Vegas stretch out in front of them like a sea full of bioluminescent plankton.

"I hate being so sad all the time. It hurts," Kent says, and throws his bottle cap into the pool. They watch it sink to the bottom in silence.

"Maybe stop thinking about it so much," Jeff says. "Listen, I don't know... shit, really. But I've doubted everything I've ever managed to achieve, you know. The only thing that carried me through was lying to myself until I believed my own lies."

Kent scrubs his face with his hands. "I was really bad to him," he says, like he's been thinking about it since he looked at his dark phone in the bar. He probably has been. "Why do I do this to people? Why can't I just be normal?"

Kent's not really a touchy-feely kind of guy. Whenever Jeff hugs him, he tenses up like Jeff might clip an edge and Kent'll break apart. Jeff risks it now and pulls a shaking Kent into his side.

"Did you ever think maybe you were just bad for each other?"

"All the time," Kent laughs, bitter and hurt, leaning in.

They sit there at the edge of Kent's pool for a while, Kent crumpled in on himself, staring at the blue glow of the underwater lights. Jeff tips his head back and watches the stars.

Kent's jaw works, open and closed like he's trying to say something but afraid of what'll sound like when it comes out.

"Why are you still around? What the hell does my friendship do for you?"

Jeff feels blindsided, but also not at all. Kent does a good job alluding to his insecurity, but Jeff's been around a while.

"That's not how relationships work, man." Jeff jostles him a little. "Love isn't a math problem."

Kent's silence burns.

. . .

"Who the fuck gets the flu in May?" Kent says when he shows up on Jeff's doorstep.

"Cool kids," Jeff says, and tries not to fall over. His head is swimming. Kent is swimming. "I need to sent down. Sit down. Lie down."

Kent doesn't look like he's doing a great job at suppressing his laughter. "Why are you even up?"

"BECAUSE YOU RANG MY DOORBELL," Jeff tries to yell, but it sounds more like a dying bird than human words. He flips Kent off instead.

"Go back to bed," Kent says, laughing. "Wait, no, I brought you food."

Jeff feels himself go a little green. He shakes his head.

Kent holds up the bag. "It's pho."

Jeff squints.

"Brisket pho. From Pho King."

Fuck. Jeff is such a sucker for brisket pho. He'd sell his youngest sister for brisket pho and a dime. If he can choke down anything in his death throes, it's gonna be brisket pho. Kent is totally exploiting the situation.

"If you come inside, you're gonna die," he warns. Whoever built this house was an awesome carpenter. The door jam doing a great job of holding his weight up. "I'm really sick."

Kent's full-on laughing at him now, shouldering his way into Jeff's germ temple, slapping his own shoulder. "Got my flu shot, man. I am impervious."

"So did I," Jeff whines, hitching his comforter up around his ears again, trailing after Kent as he heads into the kitchen.  

"It mutated early this year. Had to get two."

Jeff scowls at Kent's back. "That's bullshit. That's not how that works. I want my money back. Did you get two flu shots?"

Kent's still so familiar in Jeff's house that it makes him ache a little, but that might just be Jeff's pending demise. Kent puts the pho on the counter and pulls a bowl out of the cabinet. Jeff has this thing about not eating food from takeaway containers if he can help it.  It's been years now, but Kent still manages to navigate the silverware drawer like he never really left.

"Here, c'mon." Kent leads Jeff into the living room and makes sure he's totally secure on the couch, propped up with a couple extra pillows. "I'll be right back."

Jeff watches him leave the den, curious, but the siren call of brisket pho takes all of his attention. It goes down hot and salty and Jeff's dying, dehydrated soul sings.

He wakes up to Kent pulling the half-empty bowl out of his grasp. "Let's go, Swoop-de-woop. Back to your deathbed."

Jeff can walk just fine, but Kent wraps an arm around his ribs and helps him up the stairs to his bedroom, where Jeff freezes in the door.

Kent's changed his sheets. Kent changed his sheets and fluffed his pillows and it smells like he opened the windows for a while to air out the room. The atmosphere of sweaty death hovel has been totally replaced by the cool, crisp scent of fresh linen.

"Holy shit," Jeff says, stunned and pleased, stuck standing in the door to his own bedroom.

"Yeah, yeah," Kent laughs. "I'm the best. You're gonna die standing here, so hurry up."

Jeff collapses face down into his pillows. Kent even pulled a new comforter out of the closet and put it on the bed, so Jeff lets him peel the sweat-soaked one he's been carrying around off of his body like a shed skin.

"Holy shit, I think I love you," Jeff says, and forces his body over so he doesn't suffocate in his own bedding. "You're gonna make someone a great wife one day, Parser."

Something weird passes across Kent's face, but Jeff's asleep before he can even think about it.

. . .

Jeff knows it's a bad idea when he does it, but he hopes he's wrong. Hubris is a powerful force.

"Hey, Geoff 1," he tells the doorman to Kent's building.

"Hey, Jeff 2," the doorman echoes, their own stupid joke. "Mr. Parson's not expecting you?"

"Nah," Jeff wrestles the giant bag of food he's carrying up onto his chest for better traction. "I was hoping to surprise him. He's been kind of down lately."

"Real shame about the Cup this year," Geoff agrees, barely understanding, and buzzes Jeff in. Jeff can hear the tinny sound of Don Cherry from Geoff's iPhone on the counter. "Who're you pulling for?"

"I hope they both lose," Jeff says cheerfully, and Geoff laughs like it's the funniest shit he's ever heard.

Kent looks wrecked when he opens the door. Dark circles, dirty shirt, pajama bottoms that Jeff knows for a fact are probably hanging off of him this time of year. They stare at each other before Kent sighs.

"I'm worried about your codependency," Kent says when he steps aside to let Jeff in. "Have you considered a surrogate mother? There's a place you can go on the Strip for that."

Jeff gives him a look. "Is that a prostitution thing?"

"No, there's actually a place where you can go and somebody will pretend to be your mom and feed you dinner and rock you to sleep at night. Sex might be involved. Unclear. Why aren't you at Rummy's party?"

"My Parser-is-moping senses were tingling. With great power, yadda-yadda."

Jeff starts unloading bags. He's got Korean chicken wings--the fried kind Kent likes--and Polynesian macaroni salad and drunken noodles from Good Siam, and he's never going to tell Kent Parson that he went to five different restaurants out of some misplaced panic that he can make Kent feel better with food, even if he doesn't know  _ which _ food. He's doing his best.

"I know you're watching it anyway, because you're a masochist." He even got a big jug of green tea, the kind that Jeff thinks tastes like dirt but Kent is blatantly addicted to.

Kent doesn't say a lot while Jeff gets the dishes out and ladles heaping piles of food onto plates. They both carry them over to the TV and get settled in. It's the fourth game and the Falcs are up by one.

"I can't believe Alexei Mashkov might lay his big stupid hands on my baby tonight," Jeff says, tragic.

Kent doesn't laugh.

"It should have been me," Kent says, exceedingly sad, furiously bitter. "We should have been doing it together. It's not fair."

Jeff puts down the chicken wing he was halfway to eating. He gets it. He isn't self-centered, he understands that depression has nothing to do with anyone but the sufferer, but he's starting to feel a little offended.

"You know what?" Jeff says, tired. "I'm sick of this. What about me, asshole?"

Kent looks over at him, startled, deer-in-the-headlights. "What about you?"

"If you were in fucking Providence battling it out for the Cup with Jack Zimmerman at your center, where the hell would I be? Where would my Cup win be? You don't get to take the best day of my life from me just because you feel neglected."

Kent opens his mouth. Closes it. Jeff holds his breath.

"What the  _ fuck, _ man?" Kent says, just shy of hysteria. "I get that it's hard to like, be around me, but you don't fucking get to show up at my house unannounced, when you  _ know _ I'm gonna be a piece of shit right now, when you  _ know _ I didn't want to be around people tonight, and fucking blame me for how I feel about this!"

"You always feel like this!" Jeff yells right back, throwing his hands in the air. "Take a little fucking responsibility for yourself and stop blaming Jack Zimmerman for breaking your heart and ruining your life! You're not eighteen anymore! Life isn't a Taylor Swift song! You're a fucking adult!"

And Kent just--Kent totally shuts down. His face shutters, his body unspools, and he stares at the coffee table.

"You should leave now," he says, furiously cold, and it scares the shit out of Jeff. He'd almost rather Kent yell at him.

"Kent--" he tries, stuck between apologizing and yelling some more.

"You  _ really _ need to get out of my house now," Kent says.

"I didn't mean..." Jeff tries one last time, but trails off. Kent's staring at the plate balanced on his knees, fingers wrapped around the edges so tight his knuckles have gone all pink and white. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even look up at Jeff.

Jeff gets his phone and his keys and leaves.

. . .

Jeff has no idea what to do, so he calls his mother. He's walked all the way to the 7/11 on the corner of Wyoming and Commerce, drunk 20-somethings jostling around him while he stares into the beer cooler in the back corner.

"Will you tell me about Olivia?" he asks when she picks up. "I mean, specifically what it was like for you, uh. Before it happened. I don't remember, but. I've got this friend and... I want to help him, if I can."

"Not you?" His mother asks, sharp.

"No ma'am. Not me. I promise."

His mom is silent for a long time. It sounds like she takes a breath to speak two or three times and thinks better of it. Eventually, she swallows.

"I don't know what to tell you, sweetheart. It took a long time for us to figure out it wasn't our fault. Lots of time and therapy. Your sister was sick. There are hundreds of things I wish I had done differently in retrospect. Things I beat myself up for not seeing. We knew something was coming, but we didn't know what it was. There's only so much you can do, and when it comes time to do your best... you can't do anything more than that. Sometimes just showing someone that their problems are important to you, too, is enough. That life is worth living. You have to help by example. I don't know if that's the right thing to do but… you know what they say. Perfect is the enemy of good. Does that make sense?"

Jeff stands in front of the cooler, hand on the door, staring at the colorful rows of single beers. "I think so, ma. Thanks."

"I'll pray for your friend," Catherine whispers.

Jeff closes the cooler door and walks out of the store without buying anything. In fact, he walks all the way back to Kent's condo, gripping his phone so tightly the case pops in protest.

"Hey, Mr. Troy," Geoff says. "Mr. Parson just called down and took your name off his list. I can't let you up there now. Sorry about that."

Jeff takes a deep breath. "Can you please call him and let him know that I'm going to be here, sitting in that chair," he points to the dark green armchair in the corner of the lobby, "until he wants to buzz me up?"

Geoff looks at the phone on his desk, then looks back up at Jeff.

"I won't make a scene, I won't cause any problems for you." Jeff goes across the way and makes himself comfortable in the armchair. "If he comes down here, if he has to leave, I won't harass him. I won't do anything. I'm just going to sit here until he tells you it's okay."

Geoff looks conflicted.

Jeff folds his hands over his stomach, tips his head back, and waits.

. . .

Jeff's been there for about five minutes when he hears Geoff pick up the phone and dial up to Kent. He speaks too quietly for Jeff to hear the conversation, then puts the phone down again.

"What's the score?" he asks. Geoff is quiet for a minute.

"2-0 Anaheim," he finally says. Jeff nods and closes his eyes.

. . .

Geoff picks up the phone when it rings a couple times while Jeff's sitting there. Each time, he looks over at Jeff, says, "yes," into the receiver, and hangs up. Jeff kind of hopes Kent's freaking out about his continued presence. But not too much.

When it rings for the third time, Geoff picks it up, listens for a minute, says, "okay, yes sir," and hangs up.

"Alright, kid," he tells Jeff as he buzzes the lock. "Go on."

. . .

Kent's door's hanging on its lock when Jeff gets off the elevator so he pushes it open. Kent's sitting on the couch in the middle of the shattered remains of every dish they were eating out of and what looks like half of what was left in the cabinets.

"Jesus, Kent," he says. "Are you okay? It's just the plates, right?"

Kent sighs explosively. The television is still on. The Falconers are beating the Ducks 4-2. There's less than a minute on the clock, and when Jeff picks up the remote, Jack Zimmerman sinks the empty-netter.

"Fuck," Kent says, pitched and broken.

Jeff turns off the TV.

"Thank you for coming back," Kent says. His hands are shaking where they're balled up on his knees. "I'm really sorry I yelled at you, you don't deserve it, I'm not--" Somehow Jeff didn't notice it until right now but Kent's crying, that eerie wet kind of crying that he was doing in Providence that doesn't make a sound. He's just leaking like a runny faucet. "I'm not mad at you, I promise I'm not, I'm so sorry. Please, don't--" Kent breaks off and puts a hand over his face, slumping into himself on the couch.

It's fucking terrifying. Jeff's seen Kent scared before, he's seen Kent sad and exhausted, but this is like watching somebody lose themselves, like when the homeless woman who hangs out by the pizza place that Jeff sometimes stops at after home games comes over to have a conversation with him that isn't really with him. 

"I know," Jeff finally says, helpless, and goes to sit next to him on the couch, mindful of the shattered plates on the floor. 

"You remember when I disappeared that week a couple years ago?" Kent stares down at where his hands are lying uselessly in his lap like they've been cut from his shoulders. "I went to see him. He wouldn't answer my calls, so I had the brilliant idea that, like, he can't avoid me if I show up. If I'm in his house with his frat brothers and his parties and his cute little blond--" Kent's voice shakes and breaks.

"That strikes me as a very not good idea," Jeff says gently.

"Astute," Kent says. He wipes the tears off of his face with a brutal swipe of his sleeve. "I think, driving away from that house, that's the first time I really felt like I deserved to die." It's the first time Kent's actually said it out loud, and everything in Jeff's body slams into high, panicked alert, but Kent just steamrolls right over it. "You know, you're the only person I've ever really told about it. I mean--" Kent lifts a shoulder. "Told is a strong word. It just kind of came out the first time, and then I figured, well, Jeff's not an idiot, he'll figure it out now, might as well just keep--" He pushes both hands through his hair and laughs. "Thank God, finally I can dump this shit on someone else. Isn't that fucked up?"

Jeff gapes at him. "No, that's not fucked up. That's... perfectly normal. That's exactly what you should have been doing from the start, you idiot."

Kent hunkers into his shoulders, makes himself smaller, and Jeff wants to smack himself.

"That's not what I mean. You're not an idiot. Sorry. I just--I'm starting to think nobody ever taught you how to deal with sadness, so you just kind of balled it all up and took it inside you, and it's rotting you from the inside out."

Kent rubs a hand over his face, clearly exhausted. "Have you considered teaching middle school poetry? That's some emo shit," he says, and Jeff sighs.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You deflect it. I know you want to talk about it. It comes up every time you get wasted--and hey, don't think we're not going to talk about that in this come-to-Jesus, but we'll get back to that--and the second you realize you actually might have to actually talk about it instead of moping out loud, you clam up. I wanna shake you sometimes," Jeff admits. Some of the renewed fight has drained out of him, and now he just feels overwhelmingly tired. "You scare the shit out of me."

"Sorry," Kent says, small and berated, and Jeff just can't get it right. He can't put it together and explain it the way it needs to be explained.

Fuck it.

"My sister died when I was six. Olivia. She was fifteen. You know what an exit bag is?"

Kent's breathing hitches, very loudly.

"Yeah," Jeff says. "I don't really remember her. It was a weird time for my family. I think I repressed a lot of it. It didn't really affect me when she died 'cause I was so young, but I remember everything that happened after, though. We all thought my ma was going to kill herself."

Kent makes a gutted noise. "God, okay, I get it, I'm not the only person with problems."

"No, man, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying--look, a lot of people think most people divorce when they lose a child. But the exact opposite is true. The divorce rate is nearly a quarter than what it is for the other people. It's easier to share your grief than it is to bear it alone. My parents had to learn how to do that. Do you get what I'm trying to tell you?"

Kent swallows wetly, looks away. "I don't want you to have to put up with the way I am. Hell, I wouldn't want to put up with me. It's not fair to you. "

"Let me figure out what's fair, okay? You asked me what your friendship does for me, right?"

Kent can't meet his eyes, but he nods.

"You show up. You just... show up. I know you're dealing with your own shit, I know it's exhausting, I can see it, I see it every day. But you still wake up every day and check to make sure your rookies don't need anything, or, man, you drove 45 minutes round trip to get me soup when I thought I was dying. You changed my sheets, man. You're a good person and you're... here. Even when you don't want to be. I'm pretty sure you wake up in the morning for everyone else when you don't want to wake up for yourself, and that's remarkable. You show up."

"Proximity seems like a pretty terrible litmus test for friendship." Kent's voice is bitter.

Jeff shrugs. "It's not proximity. It's persistence. I mean, we've done the other stuff. We don't find each other fundamentally vile, we don't hate each others' politics or spouses or shower gel smell." Kent's is chai and pepper. It's the grossest thing Jeff's ever smelled in his life, but the scent memory of it--the smell of the bathroom on the road when Kent gets out of the shower and the steam pours out behind him--gets him in the weirdest fucking way. Jeff catches himself ordering chai lattes sometimes in Starbucks now. "I forgive you when you're an asshole, and you don't hold it against me when I yell at you to shut up for like five fucking minutes about whatever stupid bug you've got up your ass this time."

"That's... very lackluster." Kent's still all wound tight in on himself, hunched over, hands in his hair. 

"Yeah," Jeff says. "Because this isn't a fairytale, remember? It's human. It's--" He laughs. "It's what adult relationships are like, man. They're boring. They're stable."

Kent puts both hands over his face and breathes out, explosive. He gets off the couch and goes over to his giant fucking wall of windows and thunks his head against the glass. Jeff watches his feet, hyper-aware of the porcelain all over the floor.

"This is really overwhelming," Kent says. His breath fogs up the glass in front of his face.

Jeff hums, affirmative. "I'm not going to hold you down and make you tell me about your problems. That's what a therapist is for. But I'm not gonna run for the hills either if you wanna let yourself get it out, okay? That's not bros."

Kent's silent for a long time. Jeff doesn't really expect an answer.

"I need some air," Kent says, and opens the balcony door. Jeff doesn't miss that he's trembling. Suddenly all he can see in his head is Kent climbing up on the railing and throwing himself off. 

"Fuck," Jeff groans, and follows him out onto the balcony. They stand there in silence for a minute. Jeff feels off-kilter. 

"I don't think I'll ever get over it," Kent says. The lights from the Strip twinkle and dance below them.

"Over what?"

"I grew up four blocks from Flushing Bay, man. Being landlocked makes me feel trapped and panicky. Like a caged animal."

Jeff goes over to him and leans against the railing. Their shoulders touch. "It's your own fault for buying a fucking mansion on the Strip," Jeff points out.

"You know what I mean," Kent says, and yeah. Jeff gets it.

"Hey, speaking of New York, when's the last time you went home?" Jeff asks. He knows it's been a while. It's not like Kent's shitbag of a mother calls and invites him up for cheerful family get-togethers. "We should fly up there this summer. Fucking hell. When's the last time you had an actual honest-to-God pastrami?"

Kent drops his head into his hands and groans. Jeff thinks he's going to look up, crack a joke, but he must have totally misread things because Kent just meets Jeff's eyes and says, "really? You wanna go with me? Even though I'm a mess?" so quiet and small that a weird wash of righteous anger surges through Jeff. He reaches out and shakes Kent's shoulder, just a little.

"Yeah, man. That's what I've been saying. Look, my ma's birthday is in August. We usually have these huge parties, all the kids and cousins and associated hood strays. Come up with me. You'll be right at home."

Kent's grin is sudden and bright. "If you think Huntington is the hood, you'd probably wither into dust the second you stepped foot onto my block, suburb boy."

"Watch it," Jeff says, pretend-affronted.

Kent shrugs. "Once a suburb boy, always a suburb boy. I mean, honestly. Summerlin?" It's an old tease.

"I like having a yard," Jeff protests. "Sue me."

"Sand," Kent says, rolling his eyes so hard it must hurt, "is not a yard."

They stand there for a while, watching the city. The way Kent's condo is angled, they can just see the Bellagio fountain glow and pulse.

"Kent," Jeff finally says, dropping his head to his fist to watch him. "Do I need to-"

"Stop." Kent's voice is tight. "Don't. Just let me--"

"Nope." Jeff shakes his head. "You're not getting out of this that easily. Do I need to watch out for you?"

Kent puts his head in his hands and scratches at his scalp. "Don't you already do that?"

"Yeah," Jeff says. "But more. I dunno, actively."

Kent laughs, shaky. "Yeah, man. Don't worry. I'm fine. I'm always fine." When he looks up he's got his media smile on, big and brilliant and too cocky to be true. Jeff stares. It's so fake Jeff thinks maybe he's been transported into some TV land, where there's a TV Kent and a TV Jeff and in a minute the credits are gonna roll and everything's going to be fine because that world doesn't exist more. He feels like if he reaches out to touch Kent, he won't be there. Some unnamed nerve deep inside of his stomach hurts. 

The longer Jeff stares, the more the grin slips off of Kent's face. 

"You can talk to me. About anything, okay? I know you think I'm just saying that, that it's just platitudes. But I mean it." He knocks his shoulder into Kent's companionably. "I need you around, man. You're my captain. You want me to get up on a chair? I'll get on a chair. I'll get all the boys to do that scene from Dead Poet's Society. I can make 'em. I've got dirt on at least half those assholes." 

Kent rubs his hand in his hair and laughs, genuine and open. "Please don't embarrass yourself."

"It's okay," Jeff says. "All of my shoes have great traction. I won't fall."

Kent lowers his head to where his arms are folded across the balcony railing and looks down to his feet. "I don't know how to do this," he says, soft and frighteningly vulnerable. "I think you're right. I think I've been pretending like it's not a problem for so long that's just... how I became. And if I let you see it, like, really let you see it, you're just going to run away like--" His voice cracks.  

He looks like he needs to be grounded, Jeff thinks, and he is suddenly completely done with not touching Kent so he reaches out and puts a hand on the warm skin of Kent's exposed neck. 

"I've got you," Jeff says. "I'm serious. I've got four older sisters. I'm good at this, okay? I may not be a trained professional or whatever but I'm not going to jump ship just because you think I should. The Troys are a remarkably stubborn breed."

Kent doesn't say anything, but he turns his head and regards Jeff with quiet, unbearable sadness. 

"I promise," Jeff says, just to be extra firm, and he sweeps his thumb across Kent's hairline.

Kent melts. All of the tension visibly slides out of him in a flood, the tightness in his jaw and neck and shoulders evaporating. Now that he thinks about it, with his hand on Kent's warm skin, Jeff's not sure he's ever known Kent to date or hook up or... anything. And Jeff's an observant dude; if he knows about Jack Zimmerman, he's bound to have noticed anyone else. They've known each other for years now, which means if Jeff's right (and he kind of hopes to God he isn't), Kent must be starving for someone to touch him with intent. 

_ Fuck it, _ Jeff thinks, and pulls Kent in to slot next to him, tucked up under his arm. It's a million degrees out, but Kent shivers against him. 

They stand there for a while and both pretend Kent isn't crying.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> [tu.](http://bazanite.tumblr.com)


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